TagTeam
by StarscreamII
Summary: Set in Demyrie's "Odd Moments/Couple" human AU. Knockout is the legend of the campus. He drives fast cars, and all the girls would die for a chance to hook up with him. Soundwave can't stand him. Much to his chagrin, he finds himself as Knockout's "sidekick" when it comes to picking up girls. However, the latest target may prove to be a little different from the ones he's used to.


**A/N:** I don't know. I honestly don't. I have no idea. But after reading bits and pieces of **Demyrie's** "Odd Moments" and seeing adorable fan art of that AU human Soundwave, I knew I had to write something—anything—with him in it. So I did. Ta da. Little bit of an explanation…I am just exploring here. I filled this thing with both canon characters and OCs, too much description and topic changing, and characters from multiple Transformers universes. Please don't criticize. My plan was to have no plan, and that's exactly what happened.

To be clear, they are _actually_ humans in this AU. I know that's often ill-received, but if you don't like it, simply don't read it. Also, I am experimenting with Soundwave's pre-voice loss, since he was nearing the end of or just out of college when the fateful accident happened (if you don't know what I'm talking about, go read the original stories by Demyrie. And Demyrie, if you're floating around out there somewhere and happen to see this, it would be great to have confirmation on a few facts).

**Warnings: **None, really, other than the fact that Knockout is a complete man-slut. I thought this was going to be my first story not rated M, and then KO showed up and started displaying his rampant sexuality. Interpret that how you will. *shrugs* I think that's about it…oh. Watch out for the irony and TF references. They're rather aggressive.

**Disclaimers: **I do not own the "Odd Moments/Odd Couple" AU. That was **Demyrie's** brilliant idea and I love it. **I do not own Transformers in general **except some cheap rubber/plastic toys of Barricade and Mirage that my mom found in the lost and found where she works. **I do not own Chipotle.** You'll understand that later. Last but not least, **I do not own any of the songs**/artists (that's weird…) mentioned here. Well, I own files from iTunes of them, but I don't own the rights to them… You guys catch my drift.

**AND IT'S NOT REALLY EDITED. **So if you see any glaring errors, please let me know so I can fix them.

* * *

Soundwave sighed and grabbed his keys, heading for the door. He jumped when it opened quickly, almost smacking him in the face. A short, handsome, frantic ginger rushed in, stopping short right in front of the room's towering resident. Thankfully, otherwise Soundwave would've been bowled over. Despite being..well, just _big_, he was notably more vulnerable when surprised. Which was often. Especially when the situation involved Knockout.

"Soundwave…" the ginger panted. "You've gotta help me out…" He trotted around the taller man and collapsed into a chair, draping his long arms over the frame, looking like he owned the place.

Soundwave just watched him silently.

Knockout caught his breath after a moment, then pointed an equally long, perfectly manicured finger at Soundwave. "For future reference, never run all the way from the Pax complex over here. Or vice versa. It'll kill you."

He just nodded. Given that his legs were probably longer than Knockout's entire body…well, maybe not that long. Plus, the dramatic redhead had a tendency to over-exaggerate.

"Anyway," Knockout heaved a theatric sigh, "I was wondering if you could do me a favor."

Soundwave was immediately suspicious. When it came to favors for Knockout, one was usually caught doing something illegal. Or, at the very least, morally questionable. "Whaddaya need…?" Soundwave asked warily, shifting his weight.

Knockout grinned. "Okay, so there's this girl—"

Soundwave groaned quietly, rolling his eyes behind his red visor.

"What?"

"It's _always_ girls with you."

"Yeah, because I'm _normal_," the ginger fired back, "unlike you who sits in here and listens to music all day, fiddling with computers." Before Soundwave could protest, Knockout had started on a tirade. "What's so fascinating about machines anyway? They don't have emotions—"

_They have personalities,_ Soundwave thought, glaring at the noisy nuisance occupying his personal space who would never understand why he did what he did.

"—they don't talk—"

"Not in a language you understand," Soundwave finally retorted, albeit muttering.

"But that's what I _mean_!" Knockout exclaimed, gesturing wildly. "You speak the secret computer language! You're hardly outside, so the sun hurts your eyes, you're really white…" he trailed off, glancing down at his own skin. "So am I, but that's a genetic trait, so it's beside the point—but if you'd just get out more, you know, go to bars, get drunk, hook up with a girl or a few—you'd be…I don't know…More social, or something. More like me." He couldn't help adding a smirk to the end of that comment.

"Yeah, because everyone wants to be like you," Soundwave growled sarcastically, with another harsh eye-roll.

Knockout pretended to not notice. "I'm just trying to watch out for you. But anyway, this girl. I found out she's in your Chem class, and I was wondering if you could talk to her."

Soundwave stared dumbly for a moment. "Me?"

"Yes, you! Of course you! I'm talking to you, aren't I?"

"But…you know I'm terrible with girls."

Another dramatic sigh. "We just went over this…maybe if you actually came out of your room every once in a while, you'd be a little more confident about…well, life, to be completely honest. Look," the redhead leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees, pressing the tips of his fingers together, looking up at Soundwave rather conspiratorially from under his impossibly long and strangely dark eyelashes. "You're perfect for this kind of thing. You're dangerously shy, which makes you oddly charming, you're…marginally attractive—"

Soundwave raised one dark navy eyebrow.

"—girls love you. Trust me." Again, that long, perfect finger was brandished; keeping Soundwave from making any kind of denial. "I know what to look for."

Soundwave resisted the urge to sigh. While the tone and inflection of Knockout's deep, rich voice gave the impression of sincerity, he knew better. He'd only known the smooth-talking man for a few months, but as attuned as he was to body language, he'd already learned the many various undertones that accompanied the charade. This one clearly said that Knockout was only placating. Complimenting who and what he needed to in order to acquire something he thought he deserved. Which happened to be some new piece of ass in Chemistry.

He thought he was Primus' gift to women. And men. Okay, basically the world. No one was truly good enough for Knockout except…Knockout, but in order to keep himself from getting bored, he needed a near-constant string of lovers and hours behind the wheel of a custom sports car. Whether that time was spent illegally racing or just driving around campus, leaning out the window, wolf-whistling at girls, it didn't matter. He loved showing off. Soundwave was certain there had to be several mental disorders associated with the ginger's craving for attention, but that wasn't any of his concern. At least not directly.

Soundwave was startled out of his thoughts when Knockout checked his watch and cursed quietly. "Late." As he hurried for the door, he glanced back over his shoulder. "Make sure you talk to her!" And then he was gone. Soundwave could hear him sprinting down the hall, cheerfully shouting "Wake up!", and undoubtedly causing most of the dorm residents to do just that.

With a heavy sigh, Soundwave checked his own watch. Ten minutes until his Calculus lecture. So much for that coffee.

* * *

The Calc professor's upbeat foreign drawl was a surprisingly welcome reprieve from Knockout's hormonal (and possibly drug-induced; Soundwave had noticed the painfully obvious bruise adorning the vein on the inside of his elbow) prattling. Though Knockout was technically foreign; mostly German; he'd been born in the States and sounded as uninterestingly American as anyone else.

Unfortunately, whether due to the lack of caffeine that was typically coursing through his bloodstream at this time of morning, or to the fact that most of this material was still a review, Soundwave found himself focusing his attention elsewhere.

Namely, on the idea that Knockout had been using him since they met. To the smaller man, Soundwave was nothing more than a tool. He could pull the "bashful friend" card out on any girl who happened to wear her shorts too short and her tops too low. Once Soundwave had roped her in, giggling, making her think that he actually had the time to date, Knockout would descend like a starving hawk, and 100 percent of the time, the girl would fall right into the arms of the "exotic foreigner" once he whispered about "fancy cars" and "special treatments" in bed. It didn't help that Knockout was minoring in medicine. Apparently, women loved medically-based double entendres.

And then Soundwave would be right back where he started; clumsy, awkward, antisocial, with what was commonly termed a perpetual "kicked puppy-dog" expression; dark, melancholy eyes hiding behind his trademark red visor; until Knockout ended up getting bored with or often breaking his current toy (amidst a downpour of tears and curses and "I thought you _loved_ me!"s) and just came marching back, demanding a new one.

And the worst part of it was, Soundwave didn't have the confidence to tell him off. He was a complete ass; and Soundwave was frequently (unfortunately) caught in public with him, and was therefore present when he decided to shout out a catcall that was so socially unacceptable it made Soundwave blush redder than his visor. More embarrassing, Soundwave was ashamed to admit that Knockout was right. He _was_ antisocial, he _was_ really white, and the visor helped keep most of the too-harsh glare of the sun out of his too-sensitive eyes. He felt more accepted by computers than people. Machines didn't ask him questions. They didn't judge, they didn't ditch him if he left for a minute, their lack of emotion was what he loved about them. Humans were just…too unpredictable.

His sister would tell him he was perfectly capable of going out and doing whatever he wanted; he didn't need to depend on anyone—but that was easy for her to say. Partly because she had to be one of the most confident people Soundwave knew. Besides maybe Knockout, but just the thought of the overly-enthusiastic redhead made him inwardly sneer. He often found himself wishing that confidence could be inherited genetically. It couldn't have skipped a generation, because his sister had it, and had then passed it down to her twin boys (though that could be more due to the fact that they were five years old and utterly shameless.) He was simply cursed with being introverted.

The bell rang, stirring him from his musings. He stood, gathering his notebook and textbook under one arm, sticking his pen in the pocket of the dingy eggplantish-blue hoodie he was always wearing, and turning his mp3 player back on while he had his hand in the pocket. Fittingly, Muse picked up right where they'd left off, and the comforting sounds of British rock flowed through the headphones.

He made his way back to the dorm slowly, enjoying the crisp winter air. He did like being outside, contrary to Knockout's belief. He just liked to be _alone _outside. Or with his family. He and Karmen would frequently go for walks around this time of year, hanging back and catching up; while they let the boys run off their seemingly endless amount of excess energy. After a while, they'd come slinking back, yawning, complaining that they were cold and tired, and the four would go back to Karmen's apartment. Frenzy and Rumble often begged their mother for hot chocolate, which she always made (even after saying she wouldn't let them have sugar so close to bedtime) and while she prepared it, Soundwave would keep the twins occupied; building blanket forts, playing video games, or showing them how to edit an mp3 file.

After the two of them finished their cocoa and were bundled off to bed, Soundwave and his sister occupied either end of the couch, shared a blanket, and talked some more. As much as Karmen believed in being independent, she was always concerned for the way her younger brother was living. She'd tried multiple times to set him up with some of her friends. The women were always nice; tolerating his shy explanations of things they probably had no idea even existed, but by the end of the night, he always went back home feeling like they were just going out with him because they felt obligated. Karmen could be very persuasive when she needed to be.

Soundwave didn't really feel the need to have any sort of romantic attachment, in all the instances he was aware of, they just made things hellishly complicated. As a rule, he tried to avoid complications, and therefore didn't understand why Knockout was so infatuated with romantic—well, maybe that was a generous term—sexual relationships. Speaking of Knockout, the little terror was going to be back at his door within a matter of moments after he'd settled in. The ginger was like a stray cat (only far, _far_ less pleasant) and he didn't follow Soundwave because he'd been fed or given attention; he followed Soundwave simply because Soundwave existed within a fifteen mile radius of him.

Heaving another sigh, Soundwave started up the brick path that would take him around the back way into the dorm, just in case Knockout was lurking somewhere nearby, watching. He swiped his keycard and pulled open the door, stepping into the slightly stuffy stairwell and starting his ascent to the third floor. He reached his room without being bothered, and had just locked himself in and sat down at his computer when he heard a knock over the sound of Katie Melua's crooning.

"Soundwave?"

The programmer clawed at his hair, restraining the urge to introduce his face to his desk.

"Soundwaaaaave…I know you're in there…"

Maybe if he just stayed quiet, Knockout would go away.

"I saw you go in. You can't trick me." His voice held a bit of a pout, that, not unlike the rest of his act, was most likely fake. Nevertheless, it worked. Growling in the back of his throat, Soundwave stood, forgetting that he was taller than the bottom of his lofted bed frame. Unfortunately, it reminded him and knocked his headphones back so that they lay around his neck.

He unlocked the door to see a grinning Knockout holding out a plastic bag. "I brought you lunch, too. Didn't know if you'd eaten."

Glumly mumbling the required "thank you" and taking the offering, Soundwave reluctantly let his visitor into the room.

"So did you talk to her?"

"Chemistry is my next class," he sighed flatly.

"Oh. Right. But you will?"

His eagerness was almost sickening. Partially because Soundwave was thinking about the other man slowly undressing whatever girl he was trying to catch and kissing her into bed. It almost killed his appetite, but the smell of whatever food Knockout had brought overrode his gag reflex and made him salivate instead. He peered in the bag before responding. Chipotle. Awesome. He'd been craving tacos for a while. "How'd you know?" he asked, pointing at the bag to clarify.

Knockout shrugged. "Lucky guess. You seem to like anything that's put in front of you."

It was true. Soundwave was somewhat of a human garbage disposal. On the rare nights that Karmen cooked something the twins didn't like, Soundwave would snatch things off their plates when she wasn't looking; always giving them a stern look to keep them from giggling and exposing the "clean-plate conspiracy" as it had come to be called between the three of them.

"Two more questions. One, how do always manage to get past the front desk?"

Knockout chuckled deep in his throat. "I told the RA she was on my wait list."

Soundwave couldn't suppress the look of disgust that crossed his face.

"What? You have ways to get what you want, I have mine."

"You just have to flash your credentials," Soundwave retorted, expression bitter; though he didn't know whether it was because of the way the double-entendre tasted in his mouth or the genuine hatred for the way Knockout…operated, to use another.

"Oh? Is somebody jealous?" Knockout raised one perfectly-shaped eyebrow.

Soundwave gritted his teeth. "_NO._"

The redhead just shrugged dismissively. "What was the second question?"

"What's her name?"

"I don't know."

It was Soundwave's turn to raise an eyebrow. "You don't?"

"Why do you think I'm talking to you?"

"Because I'm oddly charming and marginally attractive," Soundwave snarked, in a rare mood.

Knockout ignored him. "You're the spy. You get in and gather the information for me." When Soundwave made no move to complain, the redhead continued. "She's got crazy hair, mostly dyed hot pink and put up in all sorts of different ways… couldn't tell what eye color, but they looked brown. Might have pink nail polish."

"You saw her long enough to remember all this? Why didn't you just go talk to her yourself? What do you need me for?"

"I was studying at the time. Believe it or not, sometimes schoolwork is more important than chasing girls—"

_So there was apparently more to both of them than met the eye._

"—That's why I need you. She's not in any of my classes, and I would've noticed."

"I'll talk to her," Soundwave promised with a sigh.

A slow lazy grin formed across Knockout's mouth and he stood, looking drunk with lust. "I'll be waiting…" And with the disgusting image of the redhead doing just that seared into Soundwave's brain, the other man left.

Soundwave pulled at his hair for a moment, eyes squinted shut, trying desperately to think about anything else besides Knockout lying back on his bed, completely naked, waiting and…ready. Suddenly, he didn't feel like eating. Not even tacos. No, it was more like he had the sudden urge to vomit. Swallowing hard, he readjusted his headphones and sat back down at the computer, leaving the food untouched. He didn't even really want to touch the bag at this point. Who knew where Knockout's hands had been…? That actually did cause a small gag, but he swallowed whatever'd come up right back down before he puked on his computer.

He turned up the volume and let Alanis Morissette remind him why he didn't get involved in relationships. This new girl was probably nothing special; just another slut who wore clothes that barely covered her. She'd be in Knockout's bed by tomorrow, most likely, and then after possibly a week, she'd be back out on the streets, advertising herself again like it had never happened. That was one thing Soundwave had noticed about women. Most women. They were always holding out hope that they'd eventually find the man of their dreams and live happily ever after with him until the day they both died. His sister was still hoping that she'd find someone who would help her support her current family, but after the bad break-up with her (now ex-) boyfriend (Frenzy and Rumble's father) she was focusing more on the boys and Soundwave than herself. Guys…weren't the same way. At least not most of the guys Soundwave knew. As for himself, he wasn't interested at the moment.

He sighed for what was probably the fifteenth time that day. Chem was in an hour and a half…and he had to eat _something_…Grimacing, he opened the plastic bag holding the paper bag that was holding three authentic pieces of Mexican heaven wrapped in aluminum foil. This was probably the nicest thing Knockout had ever done for him, sadly enough. He pushed his computer farther away from him and unwrapped the first, letting the copious amount of lettuce fall onto the foil. It wouldn't have really mattered what was on them, but these looked especially good. He was also just really hungry. Homework could wait.

* * *

In a somewhat better mood now that his stomach had three over-stuffed tacos to digest, he again walked slowly to the building where his Chem class was housed, breathing in the clean autumn air. Thanksgiving break was coming up soon, and while he was looking forward to going back home to see Karmen and the boys…the holidays always ended up leaving him a little frazzled. Frenzy and Rumble loved having him there for a number of weeks, and felt that they needed to show him exactly what he'd been missing. Namely, the new stunts they had come up with while he was away. This frayed Karmen's nerves right down to the bones, and she would leave Soundwave to look after them, since they seemed to pay more attention to him anyway. He'd keep them in check for as long as possible, then scold them when they did something too brash.

Smiling at the memories, he pushed open the door to the lecture hall. There was a handful of students already there, scattered, trying not to sit too close to one another. Soundwave picked the seat he normally used, against the far wall, with an acceptable view and an even more acceptable chance of not having to sit by anyone else. As the minutes passed, the hall filled slowly with students, some eager, some bored, some asleep as soon as they fell into their chairs.

Soundwave had just opened his notes and started looking over the lecture when he was startled by, "Hey, is anyone going to be sitting here?" Glancing up out of the corner of his eye, he saw a surprisingly tall girl pointing at the seat next to him with an eyebrow raised. Swallowing awkwardly, he shook his head and readjusted his legs so that they weren't in her personal space.

"I typically don't sit on this side of the room, so I thought I'd mix it up today."

Soundwave just nodded.

"I've noticed you always sit over here. Why is that? Is the view better? Or are you out of the way of the air conditioner? That I can understand. This place is always freezing." She sighed and dug her notes out of her backpack, glancing up at him as he remained silent.

"You don't say much, do you?"

"Just shy," he murmured, already feeling the blush creep up his face.

"Huh, I can understand. Given the choice, I'd much rather be in my room playing my violin."

Surprised, he looked up at her for the first time since she'd sat down. His eyes shot open once he realized who this was. She was wearing a (surprisingly modest) pink sweater and faded jean shorts over magenta leggings that contrasted quite well her sharp copper eyes and matched her extravagantly-styled, very pink hair. He stammered quietly for a moment before finding his voice and holding out his hand. "Um…I'm Soundwave, by the way."

Nodding, she placed her hand in his. "Vibes."

* * *

**A/N:** So there you have it. Completely random, not as adorable as I was hoping for, Soundwave one-shot. Vibes is not an OC. She's a pretty obscure canon gal and who could resist the name? I mean, this is Soundwave, here. Could you tell I got lazy as it got closer to the end? Yeah.

I have a picture of her over on my DA account (username pizzaangel) and it is unbearably crappy. Jus' lettin' ya know.

Also, the songs that Soundwave was listening to (were the songs that I happened to be listening to the moment I typed those sentences):

"Starlight" by Muse

"The Flood" by Katie Melua

"Moratorium" by Alanis Morissette

**Read and review, please! :D And don't forget to vote in my poll!**


End file.
